| Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907. | | | Poems.
VII. “Is it a Sin?” | | By Frances Anne Kemble (1809–1893) |
| | | IS it a sin, to wish that I may meet thee | |
| In that dim world whither our spirits stray, | |
| When sleep and darkness follow life and day? | |
| Is it a sin, that there my voice should greet thee | |
| With all that love that I must die concealing? | 5 |
| Will my tear-laden eyes sin in revealing | |
| The agony that preys upon my soul? | |
| Is’t not enough through the long, loathsome day, | |
| To hold each look, and word, in stern control? | |
| May I not wish the staring sunlight gone, | 10 |
| Day and its thousand torturing moments done, | |
| And prying sights and sounds of men away? | |
| Oh, still and silent Night! when all things sleep, | |
| Locked in thy swarthy breast my secret keep: | |
| Come, with thy visioned hopes and blessings now! | 15 |
| I dream the only happiness I know. | | | | |
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